Britain Rethinks Letting China Enter Its Nuclear Power Industry. Financing and security issues are clouding new power station projects. A few years ago, Britain agreed to let China take an ownership stake in its newest nuclear power plants, figuring Beijing had the nuclear know-how and the construction smarts to help replace the country’s aging power stations. It was a warm moment in British-Chinese relations, a deal signed in 2015 during a carefully choreographed visit to London by President Xi Jinping of China with the British prime minister at the time, David Cameron. Six years later, Britain is having second thoughts. Financing for a planned power station facing the North Sea, estimated at 20 billion pounds ($28 billion) and necessary to ensure a steady stream of electricity for decades, is unexpectedly in doubt. Part of the problem: attracting investors to a project one-fifth owned by China. Mr. Xi’s authoritarian ambitions and human rights record have chilled relations with Western nations, forcing a broad reconsideration of a range of economic dealings with the world’s second-largest economy.
New York Times 2nd Aug 2021 read more »